S. Korea Decries North's Nuke Site Move

JAE-SUK YOO

Published 8:00 pm, Saturday, December 21, 2002

Associated Press Writer

North Korea said Sunday that it began removing U.N. surveillance equipment at its nuclear facilities because the U.N. nuclear watchdog did not respond to its request to remove the devices. Fearing a nuclear crisis, South Korea, Japan and France said the decision was regrettable.

"This situation compelled the DPRK (North Korea) to immediately start the work of removing the seals and monitoring cameras from the frozen nuclear facilities for their normal operation to produce electricity," said North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency.

The nuclear facilities, which are capable of yielding weapons-grade plutonium, had been frozen under a 1994 deal with the United States that U.S. officials said averted the possibility of war on the Korean Peninsula.

North Korea announced it would reactivate them after Washington and its allies halted oil shipments to pressure the isolated communist nation to give up a separate, recently revealed nuclear program based on uranium enrichment.

The United States, which is considering a possible war against Iraq, says it seeks a diplomatic solution to concerns over North Korean nuclear development.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog, said Saturday that North Korea had cut most of the seals and impeded the functioning of surveillance equipment at its 5-megawatt reactor in Yongbyon, 50 miles north of Pyongyang.

North Korea has accused the United States of reneging on the 1994 agreement's promise to supply oil to meet its energy needs.

North Korea "twice urged the IAEA to collect the seals and monitoring cameras at an early date as it is an urgent issue," the KCNA report said.

The communist country began removing the devices on its own because the IAEA was "whiling away time after proposing what it called working negotiations," the report said.

It added, however, that North Korea said "refreezing its nuclear facilities entirely depends on the U.S. side."

South Korea demanded on Sunday that North Korea "immediately restore" the equipment.

"It has been our consistent position that we will not tolerate North Korea's nuclear activities," said Shim Yoon-jo, director of North American affairs at the Foreign Ministry.

South Korea president-elect Roh Moo-hyun's party urged the government to work closely with the United States, China, Russia and the European Union to maintain North Korea's freeze. Roh supports the "sunshine" policy of engaging North Korea of outgoing President Kim Dae-jung.

During a telephone conversation Sunday, Secretary of State Colin Powell and South Korean Foreign Minister Choi Sung-hong called for close cooperation with Russia and China in persuading North Korea, Choi's ministry said.

"For our country, this is worrisome," the Japanese Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

The French Foreign Ministry said in a statement: "France deplores the new initiative of North Korea" and said it supported IAEA efforts to monitor the nuclear facilities.

The Vienna-based IAEA has been monitoring North Korea's freeze of its plutonium-based facilities since 1994. The U.N. agency said it continues to keep a permanent inspector in North Korea and is monitoring the situation very closely.

The 1994 deal requires a U.S.-led international consortium to build to two light-water reactors in North Korea, and the United States to provide 500,000 metric tons of fuel oil annually until the reactors are built. In return, the North agreed to freeze and eventually dismantle its nuclear facilities.

But the United States and its allies cut off oil supplies beginning this month after U.S. officials said in October that the North revealed it had a uranium-enrichment program to make nuclear weapons.

Washington has been mustering international pressure on North Korea to abandon its nuclear ambitions.

North Korea has called its decision to reactivate the old program "just," but said it would address U.S. concerns in return for a nonaggression pact. Washington has ruled out such talks unless the North abandons its nuclear programs first.

IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei said he urged North Korea not to take further actions to restart its nuclear program.